We have a friend, and Anglophile American city-dweller in his eighties, whose main ambition, now, is to hear a cuckoo call, for he never has, and perhaps he never will, for he is rather deaf. But, if he came and sat under the magic apple tree for an afternoon in May, it would be quiet enough, and then he might listen to the cuckoo-cuckoo-cuckoo until he had his fill.